Avenged Sevenfold Founding.
Avenged Sevenfold (sometimes abbreviated as A7X) are an American rock band from Huntington Beach, California, formed in 1999. The band's members are lead vocalist M. Shadows, rhythm guitarist and backing vocalist Zacky Vengeance, lead guitarist and backing vocalist Synyster Gates, bass guitarist Johnny Christ and late drummer The Rev which since his death in 2009, has been replaced by Arin llejay. M Shadows came up with the name Avenged Sevenfold when he was attending catholic school which he was kicked out in Genesis, Chapter Four where Cain killed his brother Abel. They also made a song (Chapter Four) about this story.
they got their name from the Biblical story of Cain and Abel. When Cain murdered his brother, Abel, God told him, 'Therefore whoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold', although they are not a religious band even though some of the songs and themes are related to the bible, they play to rough to be a Christian Rock Band. The begining of Avenged sevenfold was quite interesting because they weren't told to become a band it just happened by knowing eachother through someone else or being good friends from when they were little.
M. Shadows(Matt Sanders).
Born: July 31, 1981.When Matt was just starting school he showed great potential for being a great future basketball player and was put into higher playing teams. Once he got older he falied in playing with the game plan but his parents missed the signs that Matt wasn't getting the game into his head, and he said to his dad "that there must be something more to life than basketball." But Matt's dad was only interested in him playing the sport.
Matt reached the age of 12 and started being the rebellion type of kid and started drinking. Matt having his first hangover in 6th grade and having to explain to his parents why he'd prefer to have
beer to relax by the age of 14 really just made his parents think about what is it that he is relaxing from after all he is just a kid, it might of been from puting alot of presure on him to succeed and Matt not being able to handle. Matt wouldn't just stop at 2 beers, he would have up to 10 beers but wasn't the olny thing going on, Matt would do anything to get out of having to go to school even though Matt was a good student. So his parents would drop him off at school in the parking lot and Matt would catch a bus home and sleep.
Eventually Matt turned to his band called Successful Failure and continued to write music for the band and his parents showed him that they supported him by letting him stay at home and turned the garage into a music studio.
Synyster Gates(Brian Edwin Haner Jr)
Born: 7 July 1981. Brian says that he has been playing the guitar to around 9 years old but
didn't get serious untill 11 years old. He was in two bands prior to Avenged Sevenfold which were Pinkly Smooth and Sliver,
the Rev was in both of these bands with him.
Brian meet jimmy in the most interesting way, Brian was new to Huntington High School both in
the 8th grade,Brain was not liking jimmy at all, he wanted to avoid him but that
didn't last long. In workshop Brian was in line and he didn't notice that Jimmy was standing
right infront of him. Jimmy turned around and started poking him and asking
"what are you doing"? Brian's only thought was to punch Jimmy as hard as he could, Brian and
Jimmy were sent outside in the hallway and started talking, Brian hated everything about Jimmy
even his clothes, Brian asked Jimmy about his hat and that led Jimmy
to talk about music. After school they both went to Brian's house and Jimmy played on Brian's
younger brothers drum kit, Brian was blown away by what talent his was hearing.
Brian before he went into Avenged Sevenfold was intented to be a studio guitarist must like his dad Brian Haner Sr, but The Rev soon changed his mind to get involved with Avenged.
Brian has stopped the band from playing some time in the past because of his amazing ways like not wanting to restring his guitars and sending them back to Schecter, which made the band get annoyed for some time.
But that's just the way of the crazy man Synyster Gates.
Before the formation of the band also attended the Musicians Institute in California for a while before The Rev influenced him to drop out and focus of the band.
Zacky Vengence(Zachary James Baker)
Born: December 11 1981. Zacky unlike the others was born in Washington, which he moved to Huntington Beach when he was starting high school.
Zacky was in high school untill Avenged got serious and then he dropped out in order to devote time to Avenged Sevenfold.
When Zacky was young he didn't want to be in a band and was going to persude in a profeesional baseball career but wanted to be the band beacuse
all his friends were in it and Zacky,
loved the punk rock scene. One of the most common things about Zacky is that his is left handed but learn't on an upside down right handed guitar, but once he got his own guitar
it was still right handed but it didn't matter Zacky still would play it upside down.
Zacky was in two bands prior to Avenged Sevenfold called Society Down and MPA. in Society Down at one of the shows the only person that showed up to their concert was M.Shadows. M. Shadows was only there Because he was into the thrashing music that they were playing.
The other band that Zacky was in was MPA which stands for Mad Porno Action, The name was chosen on one crazy night but the band wasn't going any where so they played at the high school infront of 100 or more people and Zacky was blamed for Stealing a microphone which
he wasn't quite sure if he did, But once he got in touch with Avenged he had to help with selling the demo's to get noticed and Zacky did this by working at a coffee shop and a lemonade stand to pay for the band while giving out demo's. This was a long process that every band member had to do.
When Zacky started playing with the band he got into a fight with Johnny Christ(bassist) and broke his finger but still played an entire show with his broken finger. (Johnny Christ has more info.)
Zacky came up with the idea of the foREVer phase after the time of The Rev passing away, in which time he made 2 guitar straps with foREVer on them and will not be selling any more because he doesn't want to make money off of Jimmy's death.
As you can see in the picture up above Zacky's red Schecter which is an icon for Zacky V, 6661 has two meanings behind it. The first meaning is that it's an upside down version of 1999, which is when the band formed. The other reason was as everyone would know that 666 stands for the devil and the 1 is won, so he calls it "The Devil Won".
Zacky states that it's a very metal design, he also says that "It's the real number of the beast".
The Reverend Tholomew Plague(James Owen Sullivan/Jimmy Sullivan)
The Rev was Born February 9th 1981, Jimmy was raised Catholic much like M. Shadows
but Jimmy was soon kicked out of in the second grade and M. Shadows in the 8th grade.
Later Jimmy was kicked out of reform school, then finaly joined the others in high school but
not for long as he got kicked out of there as well so he stayed at home, but
the thing was that Jimmy was in many homes while he was growing up, he even lived in the Laundry mat that he worked in which later in 2007-2008 it burn't down. When Matt was playing Basketball in school so was Jimmy and they both played well together untill Jimmy got kicked of the team at Huntington High School.
Jimmy started playing the drums around 10 but played the piano at 5, his first kit was a mailed
kit which he called crap untill the next year when he got a proper kit